Scott Webb (Host): When it comes to mental health, there are many myths. And today, we're going to try to debunk some of the fallacies around mental health with Allison Geisking. She's a behavioral health counselor with Upland Hills Health, Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

This is the Inspire Health podcast from Upland Hills Health. I'm Scott Webb allison, it's so nice to have you here today. We're going to talk about mental health, myth versus fact, maybe do some debunking, if you will. And let's start off by talking about the holidays. The holidays seem more stressful. I'm not sure why. Maybe we all just put too much pressure on ourselves, maybe not. That's why you're here and have your expertise today. So, let's start there. Generally speaking, why are the holidays so stressful for folks?

Allison Geisking: In order to answer that, I kind of want to zoom back a little bit and look at some overarching themes that we have going on in mental health. You know, one in five U.S. adults experience mental health issues each year, so whether that's symptoms or them being diagnosed, that's one in five adults. That's kind of a lot of people out there going through this. And one in 20 U.S. adults experience a serious mental illness each year. And we take these facts and implementing them into why the holidays are so stressful, you can kind of see how that can really impact all of us as a whole.

When we look at family dynamics in general during the holiday season is super stressful. You know, we have people we haven't maybe seen over the past year. We might feel guilty that we haven't seen grandma in the nursing home. And here we are at the holiday party, like, "Oh, hey, grandma. I haven't seen you in a while, but here I am," right? So, we get those family dynamics in there.

We also have losses of loved ones that we tend to kind of forget about until the holiday season is there. We might have that chair that dad sat in every year for the holiday or that jacket or coat that's hanging there that grandpa wore every year during this time or maybe a holiday sweater or something that reminds you of them. And that can be really difficult on the families too.

We also have some financial stress as well when we're talking about making sure that our expectation fits reality when it comes to our gift-giving. And there's also guilt associated with that. "Is the gift that I'm giving on the level of the gift that you gave me?" are we, you know, in the same playing field or not, right? So, there's a lot going on there with that financial piece and gift giving and guilt and shame and just really being sure that we're looking at that expectation versus reality, right? Making sure that we know our limitations and knowing that we can't control what other people do and what they spend their time and money on during the holiday season is up to them essentially, right? We can only control what we're able to contribute during this time. And I think that's something that is forgot about and we tend to carry guilt because we forget about that fact.

Host: Yeah, I think you're so right, Allison. And you know, there is always that feeling for me, like on Christmas morning, like with my wife and I, like, did she outspend me? And not that it's the dollars and cents, but it's like, as you're saying, sort of like over the holidays, especially with Christmas or gift giving in general, we tend to wonder like, "Did I spend enough to show them how much I love them?" I'm sure that's it. I'm sure there's just a lot of guilt that we feel and we have to sort of be reasonable in our expectations and maybe allow ourselves some grace and understand that, you know, we're doing the best we can, right?

Allison Geisking: Absolutely. And thinking about that, you know, not anticipating grand reaction from everything we do, right?

Host: Right.

Allison Geisking: That expectation, because sometimes you give someone something and you're like, "They're going to love this!" And they get it and they're like, "Oh, thank you so much," and then they put it aside and carry on.

Host: Yeah, they move on. Yeah.

Allison Geisking: And we don't know, you know, maybe there's some factors into that for their day, right? Maybe they're busy or distracted during that moment. And we're just kind of left feeling like, "Well, what the heck? I put so much thought into this," right? So being realistic is so important around this time because if we're not, it's really going to set us up for failure, especially with our mental health.

Host: Definitely. Let's get a little more serious here, Allison, and talk about suicide. Is it myth or fact that suicides increase over the holidays?

Allison Geisking: Let me ask you, if you had to guess, do you believe that it is a myth or a fact?

Host: I feel like just anecdotally, not being an expert in the field, I feel like it is a fact. And I feel like I have some sense of why it's a fact, but you maybe are about to tell me that it's not.

Allison Geisking: Sure. You probably heard me go, "Oh, okay," in the background. So absolutely, it's very common and average for all of us to think that during the holiday season, suicide rates go up. But in fact, they actually do not rise during the holiday season. The evidence that we look at when we're, you know, doing research, the CDC shows that actually suicide rates decrease during the holiday season. And the reason for this is pretty inclusive. If we look at the springtime and the summertime, that's actually when suicide rates increase. And there are some correlations between allergies and suicide rates going up, and I do just want to clarify. Correlation just means that something is Increased along with what you're looking at is also increasing. It doesn't mean that it causes. So, for some reason, when allergies go up, so do suicide rates, but it doesn't mean that they are directly related.

Host: That's really interesting. I've never heard that. I've never thought about the connection between allergies and a rise in suicide rates. And yeah, I'm glad to be wrong, to be honest with you. I'm sure a lot of folks, as you say, have that feeling that, well, certainly suicide rates must go up over the holidays. And I'm glad to be wrong because it's supposed to be a happy, joyous, celebratory time. One of the few times that I'm absolutely glad to be wrong, Allison.

Allison Geisking: Absolutely. Thinking about that as being an expectation again, right? It's supposed to be a joyous time.

Host: Right. Right. And we want it to be that for everybody. Even folks who may be struggling, hopefully they get a little bit of a reprieve kind of this time of the year. Let's talk about who's at higher risk for higher stress over the holidays and why their stress levels are so high.

Allison Geisking: So, this question is actually very intriguing to me because if we look across the board, moms, so parents, moms in general, are more likely to say that their stress level over the holidays is increased compared to dads. So if we think about this in A stigmatizing way, right? Like women are more vocal about things, emotional needs and things like that. So, is that the case here? I'm not sure, right? But it is important to note that there are some expectations put on moms during this time that aren't necessarily realistic to what they can provide. You know, we have the meals. We have the gift wrapping. I mean, how many times have you heard the husband or the significant other say, "I need you to wrap this for me, because I don't know what I'm doing, right? So, there's that put on moms like, "Okay, yep. I'm supposed to know how to do this. I can do this." And they can be under a lot of pressure during this time to be a certain way. I'm supposed to know exactly what you need for a gift as my child. I'm your mom. There's that pressure there and that expectation that people put on them to be a certain way during this time. So, you can definitely see that in the statistics.

Host: Yeah. I felt like when I was a kid, that was just like nothing that my mom couldn't do. You know, she was just like Superwoman to me. You know, and I have a greater appreciation now that I'm an adult, my kids are older, they're 21 and 16. And, you know, I find that I've taken on more of the responsibility of shopping for gifts and wrapping the gifts and all that. And I'm like, "How did she do it? How did she wrap those presents? They were all so pretty, you know, with the ribbon and the bows." It gives me a greater level of appreciation for just how much she did and how good she was at things.

Allison Geisking: Absolutely. And, you know, it's the presents and, you know, planning the meals, right?

Host: Right.

Allison Geisking: We think now there's more potlucks happening for a reason around this time, right? Those grand meals we see in the cartoons aren't happening as much. It's just, you know, helping with mom, but also, mom is still coordinating that in the background. Who's bringing what, right? Whose house are we going to?

Host: Yeah. What's nice too is we use our like our smart speaker now. We have a couple of them in the house and we tell our smart speaker, I don't want to say it out loud, because there's one right here behind me, but we use our smart speakers to build our shopping lists, which, you know, I remember my mom always had a notebook and a pen or a pencil and was always writing things down. But now, we just tell our smart speaker, "Hey, add this to the list." And it does make it easier, does lower the stress levels. And then when I go to the store, you just, you know, pull out your phone, look at your app. Though I do still see folks walking around with lists and I find that adorable and that, well, kind of old school, you know.

Allison Geisking: I am one of those people. I am proud to say I still write things down.

Host: I love it. That's great. Let's maybe do a little bit more debunking here. Fact or myth that everyone who takes their own life has a diagnosed mental health condition.

Allison Geisking: So, 46% of people who die by suicide have had a diagnosed mental health condition. That's less than 50% of those who are taking their lives. And I find that very intriguing because there's so much out there. Mental health matters, you know, brain health, and there's so much advocating for people to get the health that they need. And everyone's saying we've come so far. But really, only 46% of these individuals have been diagnosed. So, that's telling us that really isn't the fact here. We still have a long ways to go to debunk some of that stigma that's around mental health. And, you know, many of these individuals have this expectation that when they come in, it's going to be like a magic wand, come fix me, and that's all I need. But really, it's a lifelong journey in a lot of cases. And I think that, once again, that expectation versus reality is very important for anything we do, right?

Host: Yeah, it really is. And as you say, 46%, meaning that's 54% who are not diagnosed. And you know, the point you're making here about how we still have a long way to go, right? I feel like during COVID, we started having more conversations about mental health, emotional, mental health, and it seems like these conversations have been more open and honest and free-flowing, but we still need more information. We still need more data. We still need to understand more, right?

Allison Geisking: Absolutely.

Host: This has been fun today. We've covered some serious things and some lighter things. Let's finish up here and talk about, we know there are tremendous differences between men and women, of course. But through the lens of stress, are there differences between men and women and how we handle stress?

Allison Geisking: You know, a woman's biological makeup with hormones compared to men's hormones is different. I actually did some quick research on this just to kind of dive a little deeper for today. And in a stressful situation, we all produce a hormone called cortisol, and that cortisol elicits that flight or fight response. And with that cortisol level, we also release a hormone called oxytocin. And women tend to release more of that oxytocin under stress compared to our male counterpoint parts. So, with that being said, you know, women tend to be diagnosed more with depression like symptoms. And men tend to actually be diagnosed with more substance use diagnoses. And so, we can definitely see that play out in the statistics and our hormones and how we handle and internalize things differently.

Host: Yeah, there's no doubt. I've been married a long time and, you know, I have a daughter and a mom and I had grandmas. And, you know, we mentioned earlier, we talked about sort of many things in life or this lifelong journey, exploration and information and understanding and all that. That's how I feel about understanding the differences between men and women that even in my mi-50s, I still have so much to learn about women, about my wife, about my daughter and all of that. And I'm sure we're all there. We're all just doing our best, trying to understand each other. And as you pointed out today, be realistic, allow ourselves some grace along the way. I really appreciate this. Thank you so much. And you stay well.

Allison Geisking: Yeah, thank you. You too.

Host: And for more information, go to uplandhillshealth.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels. This is the Inspire Health Podcast from Upland Hills Health. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well.